SF Mayor Ed Lee Playing Tough on CPMC Hospital Deal

Mayor Ed Lee gets tough on hospital plan.

Mayor Ed Lee has ended the "Mr. Nice Guy" approach to California Pacific Medical Center.

CPMC wants to build a massive hospital on Cathedral Hill, and in return, the company's owner Sutter Health -- one of the largest health care corporations in the West -- must continue to run St. Luke's Hospital, an older hospital in the Mission District.

Under a deal recently revealed, Sutter Health would be able to shut down St. Luke's if its profit margins were too low -- and the company forecast being able to shut down the hospital early on in the deal.

No dice, says the mayor, who wants an "ironclad" agreement in which CPMC runs St. Luke's for at least 20 years, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Sutter/CPMC would have been able to shut down St. Luke's as early as 2020, the newspaper reported.

St. Luke's is one of only two hospitals in San Francisco located south of Market Street. It serves low-income patients, the newspaper reported.

Lee says the "bottom line" is thus: If CPMC/Sutter want to build a sparkling new hospital building on Van Ness Avenue, it must agree to operate St. Luke's.

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